Saving money and getting healthy by eating from the garden

Budget: Week 2…and a bit.

I am trying not to lose hope but this week did not go well as far as the budget is concerned…

My husband decided to do a juice fast this week. Because he is drinking somewhere between a half gallon to a whole gallon of juice from our juicer daily, we have spent more money than normal on vegetables.

We were also VERY sick this week (all 5 kids and myself) so we spent $30 on medicine, which is not in our budget.

I also bought enough groceries for two weeks of dinners so we will know more at the end of week 3 if we were really that much over or not (depending on how much extra things I need to buy).

So all and all, we spent $223 this week. Considering I was $14 under budget last week, we had $238 budgeted for week 2 & 3 together but it is doubtful I will spend only $15 for fruit & veggies for week 3. However, if we blow our budget on healthy things, like juicing, I am okay with that. What irks me is when we blow our budget on things like candy, take out, going out to eat, etc.

February is not over so there is still hope but my husband is extending his juice fast into week 3 so we are likely going to spend more again. I realize, if we were budgeting ‘correctly’, we would be eating Ramen every day – doing anything we can, no matter how unhealthy, to keep our budget. This is why I am spending so much energy on the garden this year. I refuse to feed my family unhealthy food and make them sick.

You can’t unlearn things. Now that I know what is good for our bodies and what is bad for our bodies (though I am still learning), I cannot, in good conscience, buy things that are bad for our bodies, even if they cost less. Am I wrong? I am totally open to ideas/suggestions. I’ll even post our receipts if that will help!

I have a few things in the freezer that could be possible dinners for Week 4 of February so it is still possible we will be close to reaching our budget… Also, we are way under for gas usage so that will help…we’ll see! I am not giving up!